Every script starts somewhere ā with an image, a question, a feeling, or sometimes an irritation that refuses to leave you alone. This article is about the making of what I consider to be my first REAL screenplay, Perfect Harmony: its beginnings, its characters, its themes, and the reasons I felt compelled to tell this particular story.
1. THE SPARK
In 1998, I was working in a video rental shop in Barkingside, in the London Borough of Redbridge. It was pretty dull, to say the least: The most exciting thing that happened was a teenager kicking the door open, brandishing what I presumed was an imitation gun, shouting and yelling how he was going to blow my ******* head off. I was so annoyed (and did I mention, bored?), that I just walked around the counter and kept walking towards him, until he backed off out of the shop.
But it was money (hey, and free posters!).
AND FREE FILMS.
Having come off a couple of years of making my own no-budget films, I really wanted to do something that was a step up. A mature, grown-up film with a decent story and interesting, unique characters. And, it probably goes without saying, something that could be filmed for buttons.
Having spent far too long in a fanboy whirl of Reservoir Dogs and, to a lesser extent, The Usual Suspects, I wanted to carve my own take on dubious characters in a difficult situation.
During the quiet hours - which was most of the day - I walked around the shop and made a list of indie movies that fitted the criteria: Low budget, edgy, dark, a bit of humour. Films like Fargo, Things to Do in Denver When Youāre Dead, Red Rock West, and One False Move. But I wanted to write something which an audience could identify with, rather than a tale of low-key criminals. Something like Shallow Grave or The Last Supper: A group of people in one main location.
2. THE ORIGINAL PITCH
I was in a post-Scream frame of mind: A murder mystery, but not a slasher. One of the most popular and reliable rentals at that time was the ubiquitous TV show Friends, and the dots connected:
What if I wrote Friends through a Coen Brothers lens: What if one of a group of housemates was a serial killer?
That was the starting point, and the line I would always come back to when I was working on the script.
I wrote it in just a few weeks, and something about it felt different from all of my previous efforts: It was fresh and original. It was witty, dark, with some grisly moments. It also had a thematic engine! (I KNOW!): What are you willing to do for the life you want?
This was going to be my ticket out of the video shop. As it transpired, being offered a freelance job at a Japanese television production company got me out, but thatās another story.
Fired up, I set about trying to make it as a filmā¦ and soon realised I was destined to repeat the same mistakes as the last couple of years. It wasnāt going to be what I wanted it to be. I knew there was a lot more to the script - and I also knew it was a good effort, but it wasnāt good enough. It was Chandler Bing-style gags with said Bing ending up in a no-trust situation akin to John Carpenterās The Thing.
In the drawer it wentā¦
3. WHAT ITāS REALLY ABOUT
Fast forward twenty years or so. Twenty years of thinking, on and off, about Perfect Harmony. Sometimes looking at the script, sometimes fondly, sometimes cringing. But that core idea of āWhat are you willing to do for the life you want?ā was still there, waving its arms, yelling āWhat about me?!ā
In the latter half of 2025, I went back to the script, cutting bitsā¦ cutting lotsā¦ to the point where there were only a couple of lines left and the tiniest parts of story framework.
The 1998 version opened with: Robin, a girl who always wants more, buys a house with potential for ādream homeā status, only for it to be jeopardised when she catches her far-wealthier fiancĆ© with another woman at their house-warming party. Robin is left with no option but to let her friends move in and help with the rent, all the while feeling the lure of an ex-boyfriend, the poor-but-happy Jonasā¦
Then bodies start to pile up on the living room rug.
Thatās all I kept, except that I went much bigger with the idea. I was no longer shackled with the idea of making the script as a low-budget movie.
It was no longer set in some generic present-day setting - It now had a baroque style and late 60s/early 70s glitz; a not-quite-here-or-there setting which adds a slightly unreal, fairy tale feel. (Hey, we are dealing with a house that regenerates itself!)
The semi-detached house became a shell-of-a-mansion, and whenever a death occurred inside the property, the house would change, becoming more beautiful andā¦ perfect. The deaths would be incorporated into the interior design, and represented as a stylistic choice.
The house took on a life of its own.
4. THE CHARACTERS I KEPT / LOST
The core team of Robin and her two female friends, party-girl Melina and dowdy Susan, Susanās boyfriend-of-convenience, Edgar, and mystery man Amon. There was also Sebastian, the super-rich boyfriend of Robin, and later, his new girlfriend. All those characters remained pretty much the same (although I did change Robin the most, giving her a poor upbringing which she was trying to outrun). All of the characters were named after Ikea furniture. It felt appropriate.
Characters cut were a couple of Coen Brothers-esque unreliable thugs, hired to find out where Sebastian was and what was going on at Robinās house. There was also a female private detective with a Marg Gunderson vibe, who was later changed to McChesney, a suave but ageing detective. There were a few more victims, but only bit-parts, with the exception of an Open University television presenter, who had loaned Amon toxic chemicals to dissolve the bodies.
5. THE VERSION THAT NEVER GOT MADE
As previously mentioned, the plan was to make Perfect Harmony, so I cast the main actors in hope of raising finance. Sarah Patterson, from A Company of Wolves, was cast as Robin. Cordelia Bugeja was originally earmarked for Robin, but after an audition, I saw how funny she was, and cast her as Susan. I also had interest at one point from the agent of Luke Goss for the role of Sebastian, but things never got too serious.
6. THE INFLUENCES
The pitch in 1998 was: A group of housemates struggle to preserve their trust in each other - and their jet-set lifestyle - when a series of murders occur at their ideal home.
I leaned into the jet-set life angle: People who had money, who already had everything - where do they go from there? And what if one or two of them were secretly clawing their way up the social and economic ladder, running from their humble beginnings, determined to never go back?
The pitch now: Five jet-set friends take ownership of a half-finished brutalist mansion with a dark past, only to discover that each mysterious death within its walls brings the house closer to perfection.
Perfect Harmony started as Friends-meets-Fargo. These days it is much broader; a heightened satire about status, desire, and what people are willing to sacrifice for the life they think they deserve. Blending satire and psychological horror with Tim Burton-esque visuals and absurdist humour, the screenplay is more akin to Heathers, The Menu, Saltburn and Barton Fink.
And then thereās the music.
The story starts as it means to go on, using Los Bravosā Black Is Black - a childhood favourite of mine, and a song that always felt like the starting gun for all the madness that follows. As the story is set in an unspecified late-60s/early-70s period, I opted for kitsch, bubblegum, jet-set numbers.
But there are also two present-day tracks from The Last Dinner Party that frame the story perfectly. Prelude to Ecstasy reminds me, in some ways, of Elmer Bernsteinās opening score for An American Werewolf in London, with its sense of foggy moors and impending doom.
7. WHAT I THINK ABOUT IT NOW
As with a lot of my scripts, thereās something to be said about waiting for the right moment. Back in ā98, I was so happy with Perfect Harmony, but Iām even happier that it never got made, because the 2025 draft is in an entirely different league. It has a style of its own and a visual uniqueness, yet the story is even more relevant than ever.
Read more about Perfect Harmony here.
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